Epistemic and geographic borders: decoloniality in Tybyra: uma tragédia brasileira

Abstract

This article proposes to reflect on the conception of border in the concrete sense of the term, as a line that cartographically demarcates territories, but also in its abstract sense, that is, taking into account cultural and social aspects that impose epistemic limits within the same territory. We will discuss the belief in the existence of a single national language, through which a literature is produced that contributes to the establishment of a national culture, resulting in a homogeneous community, or a nation. In opposition to this idea, Walter Mignolo, in Chapter V of his book Histórias Locais Projetos Globais (2003), emphasizes the effects of the transnational nature of languages, also showing how the construction of the nationalist ideology on language and literature took place. From this text and from concepts of decolonial theory, we will seek to analyze the play written by Juão Nyn, Tybyra, a Brazilian indigenous tragedy, as an example of effective breaking of borders by language, since, in addition to introducing words in Guarani In the work, there is an indigenous demarcation in the Portuguese language by replacing the letter “i” with “y”, a sacred letter in Tupi-Guarani.